(Penang, Friday): The Harun Hashim Internal Security Act (ISA)
inquiry will be the acid test
whether Suhakam has retreated to a narrow restrictive interpretation of its
powers or whether it stands firm and square on its statutory remit to protect
and promote human rights.
The three-member Suhakam inquiry, to be headed
by Suhakam Deputy Chairman Tan Sri Harun Hashim together with Prof Mohd Hamdan
Adnan and Asiah Abu Samah, is scheduled to begin a three-day hearing into the
conditions of the six ISA reformasi activists currently detained at the
Kamunting detention camp on Tuesday.
In my 80-minute meeting
with the Suhakam Chairman, Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman at the Suhakam
headquarters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, I
expressed the general disappointment of the civil society at the narrowing of
the scope of the Suhakam probe into
the detention conditions
of the six ISA reformasi
activists, Mohamad Ezam Mohamad Nor, Hishamuddin Rais, Chua Tian Chang, Saari
Sungib, Badrulamin Bahron and Lokman Noor Adam at the Kamunting Detention Camp
when the inquiry should deal with the central issue of the human rights
violations of their ISA detention.
Abu Talib held that Suhakam is bound by the
Human Rights Commission of Malaysia Act 1999 which defined “human rights” as
referring to the fundamental liberties enshrined in Part II of the Federal
Constitution, which allowed for preventive detention laws.
I pointed out Section 4(4) of the Human Rights
Commission of Malaysia Act 1999 which states that “For the purpose of this
Act, regard shall be had to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the
extent that it is not inconsistent with the Federal Constitution”, maintaining
that while preventive detention laws are provided
for under the Constitution, it does not mean that Suhakam is prohibited from
inquiring into the human rights violations of ISA or from discharging
its overarching responsibility to promote and protect human rights in calling
for the repeal of the ISA.
Otherwise, Suhakam would have acted ultra vires
when it decided at an emergency meeting on April 11, 2001 that the ISA is a
fundamental violation of human rights and called for the immediate release of
the reformasi activists detained under the ISA, or
they should be charged and tried publicly for any offences under the law.
Even the Suhakam statement of May 24 this year,
compromising the earlier Suhakam stand calling for the immediate repeal of ISA
by expressing the hope for its repeal “in the long term” as a direct result
of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, would be ultra vires
by such a narrow and restrictive interpretation of the powers and duties of
Suhakam.
Abu Talib said the Harun Hashim Inquiry team was
studying into all the legal aspects of this question, and I hope that the
Suhakam inquiry beginning in Kamunting on Tuesday would not fail the acid test
to stand firmly and squarely on its
overarching responsibility to promote and protect human rights.
In our discussion, Abu Talib said that when he
was Attorney-General for 14 years from 1980 to 1993, his primary concern was on
the legality of the government’s actions.
Now that he is the Suhakam Chairman, his primary focus and statutory
responsibility must change – not
whether laws and government actions are
legal but whether they run afoul of human rights, as spelt out in the Federal
Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A law like the ISA is legal as being provided
for by the Constitution but because it so run afoul of all elementary notions of
human rights that Suhakam must take a
categorical and unequivocal stand that it should be repealed forthwith.
The Harun Hashim ISA Inquiry would be judged as
to whether Suhakam has retreated to a narrow restrictive interpretation of its
powers or whether it stands firm and square on its statutory remit to protect
and promote human rights.
In my discussion with Abu Talib, I asked Suhakam
to stick to the April 2001 decision to call for the immediate repeal of ISA as
it had been massively abused against legitimate political dissent and to propose
an anti-terrorism law instead to deal specifically with terrorism.
In the
past four decades, the massive abuse of the ISA had damaged the civil and
political rights of the people of Malaysia, and it had long outlived its
original purpose to deal with the
communist armed uprising when it was enacted in 1960.
I
conceded that after September 11 attacks in the United States, terrorism had
become both an international and national problem which must be addressed
frontally.
However,
all elements of the civil society must be involved in the fight against
terrorism. It is not a fight to be conducted by the police and army alone.
Instead, it must be fought at the political level, at the economic and social
level, and at the level of ideas. But
above all, it must be fought in a manner that respects human rights.
I suggested that
Suhakam convene a conference on “Human Rights and Terrorism” to
propose a law on anti-terrorism which would address the problem of terrorism
while at the same time ensure that it would not be exploited or abused by the
government to launch crackdowns on their political opponents or stifle
legitimate dissent.
I also suggested that Suhakam conduct a full
review into the 42-year
history of the ISA, particularly the rampant abuses of fundamental
freedoms and the undermining of political dissent through the abuse of
ISA, in line with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission established
in South Africa to probe into
the dark days of rampant human rights abuses in the years of apartheid.
(14/6/2002)